Audely Bensen Writes

The Ones We're Meant to Find is billed as a page-twisting thriller about the bonds between two sisters, one living in a hyper-tech ecological nightmare of a world, and the other stranded on a deserted island.  I thought the world-building was fascinating, particularly the teardrop eco-cities, and the idea of ranking people by their family's historical pollution output. In a lot of fantasy where inequality exists, I see books falling into two camps--either the inequalities are replicated in the fantasy setting without any real analysis, or the inequalities exist only to push the main character to realize their place in the world and push them to challenge the power structure (but I, the princess, didn't know where my food came from! Or anything about my maid's life! Father, how could you?) In The Ones We're Meant to Find, inequality exists, and while the extent of it is slowly revealed to the reader, we understand that the main characters are not surprised, nor do t...

I picked up The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heap from my favorite used book store after one of my writing group friends recommended H.G. Parry.  I found this book to be highly enjoyable. As an older sibling, I found Charley and Rob's relationship to be very realistic. I thought the side-relationships with Lydia and Millie added some extra flavor to the plot, but that neither were really necessary--that is, those relationships seemed to exist to drive the plot, but didn't actually matter that much to the character development. Since I tend to fill out my supporting cast in later drafts, I think this book is a good reminder to make sure they are fully integrated into the story.  Looking at the book's twists, there was one that I loved and another that I didn't. I thought Parry did a good job at dropping clues throughout the first half of the story of Charley's true identity, so that when it was confirmed I felt that thrill of having realized the secret before Rob. (I di...